BBC spends £19,000 treating stressed out staff at The Priory

The BBC has spent nearly £19,000 of public money on treating staff
'stressed' from the pressures of cost cutting and failed initiatives.

The Priory, which counts Kate Moss and singers Amy Winehouse and Susan Boyle among its former patients, started out in 1872 as a psychiatric hospital in RoehamptonPhoto: ALAMY

By Katherine Rushton

5:59PM GMT 11 Feb 2012

It is best known as a rehabilitation centre for drug-addicted celebrities, but The Priory has also gained a following among “stressed” staff at the BBC.

The corporation has spent nearly £19,000 of licence fee payers’ money on treating staff at the exclusive clinic over the last two years, it can be revealed.

The BBC would not reveal whether executives were referred to the centre for mental health issues or for drug addiction, but confirmed it had spent £18,949 on treatments in 2010 and 2011 because there was a “compelling” business reason to do so.

“While the BBC does not normally pay for private medical treatment, we may do so in exceptional circumstances if there is a compelling business reason to do so,” it said in documents revealed under the Freedom of Information Act.

However, it is understood that the corporation agreed to spend licence fee payers’ money on the care centre because its staff were “severely stressed” because of a series of initiatives which had not gone according to plan, and the pressures of cost cutting.

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Among the faltering projects was an £80m initiative to do-away with video tapes and record all of the BBC’s footage on digital media instead. The Digital Media Initiative (DMI) floundered so badly that it was dubbed “Don’t Mention It” and Siemens, which was providing the infrastructure, was ditched from the overhaul project.

A senior insider said staff were also “at their wits’ end” because of the BBC’s cost cutting plan, Delivering Quality First, which will see it trim its budget by a fifth by April 2017, leading to around 2,000 job losses.

Another trigger is the corporation’s Nations and Regions project, which aims to move 50pc of all production outside London by 2016, often by relocating staff and placing great strain on their families.

However, the decision to send staff to such an expensive clinic has angered pressure groups.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: “It is staggering that the BBC has spent such a huge sum of licence-fee payers' money sending employees to this exclusive clinic.

“Employers should take reasonable steps to look after their staff and should be sensitive to those struggling with mental health problems or addiction, but that doesn't need to extend to an expensive stay at the Priory.

“Most BBC viewers can't afford to convalesce at this kind of retreat. The NHS is good enough for licence-fee payers, so it should be good enough for BBC staff too."

The BBC’s bill with The Priory could be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the BBC’s bill for treating staff at private clinics.

It declined to respond to another request made under the Freedom of Information Act for the corporation’s total spend on mental health care, on the grounds that it would be too expensive to gather the information from a broad range of care institutions.

The Priory, which counts Kate Moss and singers Amy Winehouse and Susan Boyle among its former patients, started out in 1872 as a psychiatric hospital in Roehampton.

Since the 1980s it has proliferated into a network of clinics, treating a broad sweep of mental health issues ranging from depression to eating disorders and sleep deprivation.

Late last year, Antonió Horta-Osório, chief executive of Lloyds banking group, checked into the care facility after he spent three days without sleep and took a leave of medical absence.